Nicola Francesconi

Nicola Francesconi is a development economist with a PhD from Wageningen University and 17 years of international work experience.

Nicola has lived in Africa for 15 years (10 years in Senegal, 3 years in Ethiopia and 2 years in Uganda) where he worked for the CGIAR (IFPRI, CIAT and ILRI), USAID and CTA. He joined KIT in January 2021 to evaluate and manage the impact of a series of multi-million, multi-year and multi-stakeholder projects in support of rural cooperation and resilience, agri-food value chains and seed sector development across sub-Saharan Africa.

His project portfolio is funded by the Government of the Netherlands, IFDC, AGRA and the Gates Foundation, and strives toward the development of a wide range of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for inclusive agricultural transformation.

Nicola is a skilled statistician, econometrician and impact evaluator, an inspiring trainer and educator, and a sensible policy advisor. His professional aspiration is to contribute to rural resilience by enhancing the impact of humanitarian, parastatal and commercial seed systems, as well as by designing and delivering leadership training for cooperative agribusiness development.